Once again, the San Francisco Police Department will participate in the annual San Francisco 1906 earthquake and fire commemorative event Friday, April 18, at Lotta’s Fountain, San Francisco’s oldest historic monument, at Market and Kearny streets, starting at 5 a.m., close to the time that the quake struck (officially, 5:12 a.m.). Quake and fire survivors will be participating.

SFPD officers will be dressed in authentic uniforms of the period and will be escorting the survivors of the quake in the Department’s vintage 1931 Lincoln Phaeton to Lotta’s Fountain shortly before the event begins. The SFPD hopes that this event will generate public support for a permanent San Francisco Police Department Museum to house an extensive collection of historical police memorabilia.

At this event there will be a tribute to Officer Max Fenner, who at the time of the catastrophe ran to warn a woman standing in front of a seven-story lodging house on Mason near Ellis streets that the wall of the building was about to topple. The woman heeded the warning and escaped injury by ducking into a doorway, but Officer Fenner was killed as the wall came down on him. His name is engraved on the memorial wall in the lobby of the Hall of Justice.

Following the ceremony at Lotta’s Fountain, police will join the survivors for a breakfast at the Saint Francis Hotel, itself a survivor (it was gutted by fire after the quake but remained standing) and later to lunch at the historic John’s Grill, 63 Ellis St.